Where librarians and the internet meet: internet searching, Social Media tools, search engines and their development. These are my personal views.

March 31, 2014

Every search engine does fun and interesting things (try searching for do a barrel roll in Google), and DuckDuckGo has a few fun ones as well. Here's a list of some of the ones that I found particularly interesting.

days between 01/01/2000 /03/31/2014 tells you how many days there have been between the two dates (but remember to do it MM/DD/YYYY, rather than the proper, ie. British way!)

argos coupon tries to find any coupons that are available to save you money on stuff.

google+ philbradley will find you people with the searched name who are on the Google social network.

@philbradley will find you information on a Twitter account, as well as their last tweet.

password x strong will create a password for you that's a mixture of characters and symbols which is going to be difficult to break. Just replace the x with the number of characters that you want, obviously.

qr code bbc.co.uk creates a QR code for the requested website.

expand http://bit.ly/a will expand out the URL so you can check where you're going before you get there. (That one takes you to Apple.com in case you were interested)

is bbc.com up? will check the required site to see if it is currently available.

There are plenty of others, and I found these via a handy cheatsheet over at Techglimpse in case you're interested in looking at shortcuts that specifically relate to geeks, techies and system admin folks. For the rest of us though, this is probably all that you'll need!

As we all know, search engines like tracking you - your IP address, your search terms and so on. They use this to build up profiles, store the data and so on. It can be a real pain trying to search without this information being stored, but you can try Disconnect Private Search. This routes your search queries through their proxy servers before they go to the popular search engines, including Google, Bing and Yahoo. Instead of these search engines knowing that a search is coming from you or your computer, all searches look like they’re coming from Disconnect. They prevent search engines from sending your search queries to the web sites you visit from search results pages, and encrypt your search queries, which prevents your Internet Service Provider (ISP) from seeing your searches.

You can install their service onto your browser, or if you're unable to do that, you can search directly from their website:

When you run your search you'll get a drop down box next to the search box for the engine that you're using, and you can choose to search on Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo or Blekko. In actual fact, it's almost acting like a mini multi search engine at that point, since you can flick from one to the other. Not entirely sure why they have added in DDG, as that is already a private search engine, but more is better than less.

You may notice a few differences to the search results - since the search engine doesn't know where you are, it can't provide you with local results, and some advanced search functionality is unavailable, although they're working on it. I think it's worth giving this a go, even if only from the website; it's really interesting to see which searches differ, certainly in comparision to your own results that Google gives you, based on your Google account!

Originally launched last year, Google has provided more functionality to their nutritional database, and you can get the information that you need without leaving the search engine. Simply do a search to compare two different foods, or use "vs" instead. (You need the double quote marks). Here's a comparison of crisps and apples:

The pulldown option is worth noting, since it gives a huge number of different comparisons, such as vitamins, sugars, proteins and fats. Unfortunately it will only compare two different things at once, but it's still a valuable tool if you're into nutrition.

This happens on a regular basis, and there are a lot of reasons for this. To take the first question first. Google is constantly updating their results, finding more information and bringing it back, so it's possible that if the count is off by a small number, it's simply because Google added or deleted content from the database. However it could also mean that because Google uses different data centres the first query went to one data centre that had one count, and the second search went to a different data centre that had another count. Because they're not absolutely in sync, it's a possible answer.

That's the kind explanation. The other explanation is that Google doesn't actually care about the number of results - it's simply a rough estimate. Google is, in effect, bone idle, and doesn't carry out a proper search for you. I asked Amit Singhal, a leading Google engineer this exact question once and he said to me that I shouldn't worry about the counts - they weren't that important. If you think about it - unless you do a very precise search Google will give a very round neat number; it's meant to simply be an indication of how many results exist. It's also a fairly moot point, since Google knows that you're not going to look at thousands of results anyway. So regard the number of results that you see merely as a guideline, not an accurate figure.

Now, when you do your search again, adding in more filters, excluding words/phrases and so on, Google actually has to do some work, and I always think of it a little bit like a stroppy teenager giving a deep sigh before getting up to do the chores. Google thinks 'oh right, this is a real request' and it actually works a bit harder in an attempt to give a slightly more accurate figure - and again this is the explanation that I got from Amit on his visit to Google in London a year or so ago. You can see this time and time again - when excluding a word from a search you often get more, not less hits because the hit count the first time is very rough - sometimes by millions. An example that I often use is this one: "man on the moon" and then "man on the moon" -hoax.

and then

Which is a difference of an impressive 8,060,000! It makes something of a mockery of Google search results, but they really don't care that much, and I've got this straight from the horse's mouth as it were.

March 10, 2014

There's been lots of discussion in blogs and on Twitter about Getty's offer to make images available supposedly for 'free'. The only problem is that they're not free, as Karen Blakeman points out in her blog post on the subject. While on the surface of it, it seems to be a lovely kind gesture, I would caution anyone who is thinking of using the service to consider it very carefully.

On their website Getty says "Getty Images is leading the way in creating a more visual world. Our new embed feature makes it easy, legal, and free for anybody to share our images on websites, blogs, and social media platforms." Now, you'll notice that this does NOT include taking copies of the images and cutting and pasting them into a PowerPoint presentation for example. The images have to be embedded into the post. Let me show you what this looks like:

Now

Now, you'll notice the stuff under the image - that's the payoff for Getty Images. You're giving a link directly back to them - which is fine, nothing wrong with links of course - but it's what they can then do. Let's look closely at the terms and conditions: "“Getty Images (or third parties acting on its behalf) may collect data related to use of the Embedded Viewer and embedded Getty Images Content, and reserves the right to place advertisements in the Embedded Viewer or otherwise monetize its use without any compensation to you.” So this is rather more than a link - they're reserving the right to place any adverts that they wish into the embedded viewer. Now, they're not doing this yet, but there's no reason to believe that they're not going to do so in the future, given that they have reserved the right for themselves. This could be a small video before you get to see the image, a banner, or adverts that relate to the content on your site - like Google's advertising program, but the difference is that Google pays you - Getty won't.

The second issue that's a concern is their statement "Note: Embedded images may not be used for commercial purposes." Now, I really don't know exactly what this means. I know that it means that I can't sell their image, and I presume that I can't use it in an item that I'm selling - all of which is fine. However, if I have monetised my blog with Google adverts, does that mean that I'm using an image that supports a blog post that supports me making money? Apparently not, according to an article in the British Journal of Photography, but it's still an uncomfortable area. Since I can't use the images in a PowerPoint presentation the question doesn't arise, but what if I did? Now, I use my presentations commercially, in that people pay to come on the courses that I run, but the presentations themselves are free for anyone to use, since I make them available on Slideshare.

My third concern is that they say “You may only use embedded Getty Images Content for editorial purposes (meaning relating to events that are newsworthy or of public interest)." Now, what does *that* mean? Something that is newsworthy today certainly won't be in a few years time or even a few weeks. Does that mean that I'll have to remove the images? You may say that I'm being ultra cautious and pedantic, and you're right - I am, and with good reason. Getty is well known for going after people who use their images, and their tactics can be somewhat heavy handed. I'd really rather not be in a position where I get on the wrong side of them, because they have access to lots of highly paid lawyers, and I don't. So this is another question mark.

Another concern is to wonder if the Getty infrastructure is going to be able to cope with this extra load - they're not a technology company like Google; do they have any idea how much extra traffic they are going to get, and have they planned for it? They may have, I don't know, and more to the point, neither do you. This is going to take time to discover and unfortunately you may discover it when the image(s) that you want to use don't show up.

Looking at this from the viewpoint of the photographer it's a disaster. If you have licensed Getty to use your images, this isn't something that you can opt out from. Unless you choose to pull your images. There are plenty of photographers who are not going to be keen on their material being shared left right and centre with no ability to say no. Consequently, I can easily see images that you have embedded disappearing as they get pulled, which isn't going to look very impressive.

All told, I'm not keen on this idea at all - there are far too many strings attached for my liking, and the idea that all of these images are now 'free' is very far from the truth. A final irony of course is the fact that Getty does not own all of the images that it's making available. There are plenty of public domain images (especially historical ones) that you can find elsewhere and use - really for free! To say nothing of the Creative Commons material that photographers are choosing to let other people use. This is really nothing more than a Getty trojan horse, designed to allow them to take control of content on your website without your permission. I'd be inclined to steer clear, and the only time I'm going to avail myself of the service is in the image above, which I'm using in an editorial manner to discuss the issue.

March 09, 2014

This IS a joke, right? People Search, People Finder and they say they are "The most complete people search on the web." Except that you have to be in the United States, because hey - no-where exists outside of the US does it? Moreover, you also need to give it a particular state to search in. Hmm... slight flaw in this approach - if you're looking for a person, maybe you don't know which state they are in - you have to do the search 50 times before you can be sure.

Then there's the link to "Please try your search for XXX in IMAGES using the below form." which isn't actually a link at all, to say nothing of 'the below form'. It gets better - when you actually might have possibly found your person, you get basically no useable information at all. In order to get that, you have to pay them money. There's a basic level of data for $3.95 with the full version for $19.95.

Seriously - this IS a joke site isn't it? I know that virtually all of the people search engines are pretty dire, but this is the worst one that I've found - with no redeeming features. "The most complete people search on the web" - give me a break!

March 05, 2014

Clipul Video Search This pretty much does exactly what you would expect - it finds video clips for you. It's also a meta search engine, since it provides you with the option of searching YouTube, Daily Motion or Vimeo - though only after you have run the search - the default is a search on YouTube. It's rather limited though, since it doesn't provide a way to access more advanced search functions, and there didn't seem to be a 'safe' search option; a slight problem since there's a listing of recent searches available for people to see. Some of these may be NSFW.

However, if you want to run a search over 3 different engines, it's worth having a look at.

March 04, 2014

There are a small number of search engines that allow you to find alternative and similar webpages and SimilarSiteCheck is the latest one. I've taken a look at it, and have to say that I found it really rather frustrating. The concept is simple - pop in a URL of a site that you're interested in, and it will find similar sites for you, based upon its interrogation of the site that it's been given.

On the plus side, it did come up with some interesting sites when I ran a search for Google UK, and I found some interesting sites that related to my football club, but it was less helpful when I tried the CILIP website (no alternatives), the BBC (again, no alternatives) and it took forever to undertake a live analysis of the UK ebay site. A search for my own domain led to it suggesting lots of sites for me that were produced by other people with the same surname, which didn't impress.

I was also very disappointed in the display of results. They're using one of those really annoying social media menu bars on the left hand side of the page that totally obscures what you're trying to look at:

Seriously - how is it possible to be less helpful? Well actually I can tell you - the links to the alternative sites are not live. That is to say, if I want to visit any of them, I have to cut and paste the URL myself. What's irritating is that they can do it - the original site that you put in as your search term has a call out box - but I already know what is on that site - it's the alternatives that I need!

To be fair, there is a bookmarklet that you can add to your browser, but that's not much help when the results are middling to poor to non-existent. It's worth keeping an eye on it, because it can only improve, but until then, I think you'll need to visit SimilarPages, SimilarSiteSearch, or possibly Siteslike.